


Home Sweet Home

by I_Got_Lost



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BAMF Lucy, Canon-Typical Violence, Edmund being awesome, Fix-It, Gen, Growing Up, I Tried, Idk it wrote itself, Narnian!Lucy Pevensie, Period Typical Attitudes, Peter being awesome, Rating May Change, Self-Esteem Issues, Sibilings for the win, Siblings Being Supportive, Susan Being Awesome, WW2, idk - Freeform, maybe? - Freeform, updated tages, what happened between the books?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23256400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Got_Lost/pseuds/I_Got_Lost
Summary: The Pevensie children came back. But, that's where the whole problem started, didn't it? The Pevensie 'children' came 'back'. These Kings and Queens are not children and after so many wars and so many years of political dancing, its hard to come to terms with the fact the face you see in the mirror is one you left behind long ago, on an entirely different world then the one that claimed you.Lucy Pevensie is not a child.But then, Lucy Pevensie isn't entirely human, either.Lucy was raised in a world far different then this one and sometimes, people tend to forget that.This is a 4 part fic that looks at how the Pevensie children might have reacted to coming back to England after having ruled Narnia
Relationships: None
Comments: 33
Kudos: 332





	1. Lucy

**Author's Note:**

> Characters are drastically different then what the movies or even the books portray them as.  
> Don't like, don't read.  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and for the love of god, don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

It was easier at the Professor’s estate.

It was easier to slip away in the dead of the night to stare into mirrors with red rimmed eyes and bitten lips. It was easier, somehow, to stare at a face Lucy had left behind _years_ ago. It was easier to remember that her hair was short, her feet were smaller, and she no longer could reach out to ruffle Peter’s hair without him crouching down to her level. It was easier to see the differences at the Professor’s estate.

It was easier when she was in a place that Lucy didn’t know.

At the Professor's, at least he left Lucy to her staring, to her angry yelling in an empty room at an empty wardrobe but for the fur coats hanging like a taunt. At least he didn’t tell her she was dreaming.

Professor Kirke at least left her to her anger and to her grief. He had left them all to their anger and grief. He, at least, had sat down and explained that he too had stepped into a world of impossibility and magic. He too, with Miss Polly, had stepped into something bigger than himself and walked out with something _less._

Stories, the Professor had whispered, weren’t always enough when you sat up at night, convinced there should have been _so much more._ When you woke up convinced that there had to be a way back. There had to be a way to cross back into a world you had watch grow from nothing and become something _more_ even while you were something so much _less._

But even he had to admit that he had only spent a hand full of days, maybe a week on the other side of the puddles.

But Lucy had grown up there.

Lucy had grown up in Narnia. She had walked in a child, grew up into a war, and grew up to be a Queen of Cair Paravel. Had her hand fought over by their neighbors and had done so much more then support in the med tents.

Lucy had walked with Edmund through his networks, law courts, and dungeons. Lucy had spun with Susan in her tea parties and archery training, had seen how Susan talked circles around the ladies of Narnia, encircling them and closing in closer until there was nothing but Susan's will and the safety of Susan's people and land. Lucy had stood beside Peter as the verdict of war dropped from his lips and guarded his back as he stopped threats where they stood until eventually there was peace in the land. In their land.

Lucy had not one set of parents. Lucy had her brothers and her sister. Yet, Lucy grew up in Narnia. Lucy grew up swimming with the merpeople, taking tea with the beavers, flying with the griffins. Lucy might have been a queen with the blood of Adam, but she was the Queen of the creatures.

Peter did not ask her for diplomacy with the humans. Susan did not ask her for gossip from the daughters of men. Edmund did not ask her for the secrets of Adam's people. Her siblings asked her for the word of the trees, asked her for the whispers of the creatures, asked her for the continued allegiance of the creatures.

Lucy simply smiled and said _maybe_.

Lucy was a queen of the creatures first and a daughter of Adam second.

It was easier at the Professor's where Lucy could pretend that the estate was Prince Shasta and Lady Aravis’ summer home and that the trees were simply sleeping.

It was easier at the Professor’s where at least Lucy did not have to be a daughter of Adam first and the queen of creatures _never._

It was easier at the Professor's.

…***…

“Lucy, do be kind to mother and father.” Edmund whispered to her as he helped her off the train.

“Only if Peter is.” Lucy hissed back, her ‘human' smile (the one Edmund said had the appropriate number of teeth and least amount of grimace in it) plastered onto her face.

Peter shot her a look but Lucy caught the way his hand twitched to offer a hand to Susan. How Susan aborted the movements needed to swing out her skirts just enough to cover for Peter's sword arm and to drag eyes away from how Edmund stood just a little too far to the right to be in proper courtly formation. How Edmund rolled his eyes to the sky, flipping his collar open to allow any number of Lucy's creatures to mutter their observations into his ears without notice.

Lucy saw it all and wondered if they should have worried more about their own habits then Lucy's own _oddness._

“Be kind.” Susan grit, her teeth clenched q little too tightly as some boy let out a sharp whistle when she flipped her hair.

Peter looked ready to murder.

“I cant make anyone disappear here.” Edmund said off hand as he grabbed Lucy's small suitcase. “Not enough information, Peter. Besides, they're just children.”

“You and I knew better at their age.” Peter near spat, his hand tight around the suitcase he had taken from Susan.

“Did we?” Edmund respond mildly, his eyebrow quirked as Lucy flashed a wolf smile (learned from the Pack Mother herself) at the boy eyeing up Susan.

Peter looked away.

It was easier at the Professor's.

….***…

“Here! Here my darlings!”

Without skipping a beat, Peter swept Lucy up into his arms, dodging her well aimed jab at his ribs. Realistically he should have been happy she wasn’t carrying her blades, Lucy thought grumpily. Peter would never have done that if she had been in her court dress.

“Pay attention, Lupe” Peter hissed.

Lucy’s attention zeroed in on Peter's gaze, following his nod to where a woman was waving her arms ever so excitedly. Was she a threat?

Who was she signaling?

What had Lucy missed while the signals literally went over her head? (Curse the wardrobe and her sudden shortness. Lucy had waited patiently the first time for her height, happily delighting in the fact she had come only second to Edmund in her stature.) Did Peter need her to disappear into the crowd? Edmund had advised against making a scene, Lucy had heard the warning quite clearly earlier, but if there was a threat…

It wouldn’t be difficult, Lucy thought as she narrowed her eyes and curled into Peter's throat, both protecting his vulnerable spots and awaiting his orders.

“That is your mother.” Peter whispered into her ear.

Well, that was a different situation altogether.

Lucy remembered her mother, ( _“You have to be brave, my darlings. Everything will work out.”_ ) but those were ling since faded memories. Lucy had two fathers and one mother in her siblings. Mr. and Mrs. Beaver were wonderful aunts and uncles, and that was nothing to say of Mr. Tumnus or the Pack Mother. Lucy had been raised by a gaggle of creatures and children of Adam. Lucy had been fostered in the dens and raised as a lion's club.

Lucy knew her siblings hadn’t had the same and more then once they had mentioned missing their mother and father. Lucy hadn’t minded missing her mother all that much. Oh, she remembered being heartbroken years ago when they stepped onto that train and mother hadn’t come along, but that hole had been long since filled and the pain was dulled by time.

Lucy tapped Peter's shoulder twice to show she understood.

This was her mother, not her target.

“Oh, is Lucy asleep?”

Curled up at Peter's throat, Lucy wondered how anyone could have mistaken her defensive position as sleep. Peter's hand, splayed across her back, pressed her a bit closer to his chest in warning.

“Yeah Mum, Lu fell asleep earlier.” Peter rumbled, somehow managing to not choke on any of the words.

Lucy bit down on the hysterical giggles that suddenly croaked at her throat. Peter was older then their mother.

Peter was older then their mother.

Susan was older then their mother.

Lucy was the same age as their father.

Well, that was a terrifying thought.

“Give her here then. You take that bag from Susan.”

That was a new voice. New voices weren’t good. Lucy rolled her head closer to Peter's neck, her hand dropping from his shoulder to the edge of his shirt under his jacket. The professor might have taken their blades back at the estate, but Peter had brought a pocket-knife with him all those years ago and he had been hellbent to bring it back home. He and Edmund might have been the only two allowed knives due to ‘propriety’ but they had made damn sure Susan and Lucy had known where they were before they had jumped into the cart bound for that station.

Lucy’s fingers slipped over the blade.

“Da?” Edmund's voice broke.

Edmund hadn’t sounded so crushed since they had found Vivienne’s body broken at the bottom of the cliffs after an ambush had spiraled out of control during the war of the North. No one made Edmund sound like _that._ No one. Lucy and Philip had long since agreed that anything that made Edmund sound like _that_ was to disappear.

Edmund didn’t know all the secrets of Cair Paravel after all.

“Da.” Peter whispered, his grip turning into something crushing instead of warning. “Da, you're alive.”

Oh.

Father.

They were talking about Father.

( _Hands curled around a cup of hot coco even as Lucy held back sniffles. “My Da was in a war too.” She didn’t dare look up, not when every time she mentioned_ that _word at home, her sister screeched, and her brothers cuffed her upside the head. “Do you think he’ll come home?”_ )

Hands slipped around her knees and underarm, (not her neck or head, Lucy approved) and pulled her away from Peter. Lucy watched as Peter gave her up willingly, his eyes open a little bit too wide and his breath a little too quick. Susan, lovely gentle Susan curled her arm through his and leaned her head on his shoulder. Her hand clasped into his and Lucy watched in approval as Peter came back to himself.

Edmund's head thumped against Peter's other shoulder and Lucy couldn’t help the soft hum she gave, only stopping when Edmund's fingers fluttered slightly in signal of acknowledgement.

Then father turned Lucy around and stopped just shy of putting her under his chin.

Smart.

Lucy's greatest weapons were her _teeth_.

“I know you’re awake Lucy.” He whispered into her hair, his nose poking the crown of her head.

Tilting her head back, Lucy looked up at her father, and oh…

Peter and Edmund both said Susan got her gentleness, her ability to made a crowd swoon, from their mother, but Lucy, Lucy was their father. Edmund hadn’t known how to explain it, even when the other two both had nodded quickly in agreement, and really, only Peter had tried. Their father, Peter had said, was _different._

Mother was kind.

Father was different.

Lucy had long accepted this as fact.

But this…

Lucy bared her throat and grinned with all her _teeth._ He smelled of oil and dust, the scent of smoke clung to him so much like when Edmund would stalk the fields, his knives in his hands and a sharp whistle for Lucy to lope along the tree line, whispering assurances to the wind and to the trees that the loggers would be submitted to far more then a _warning._

Lucy had thought their father to be something akin to Peter. Someone that was fair, just, gentle, and _kind._

She was wrong.

Their father was like _Lucy._

Da nipped playfully at her throat, disguising the motion as blowing a raspberry, but Lucy knew better. Lucy felt the scrape of teeth at her throat and the pinch of his fingers at the back of her heel. Lucy smelt the smoke in his hair and could hear the low growl in his throat.

Da was like _her._

Lucy's nose tucked into his throat with a purr, ecstatic at the fact someone other then her brothers and sister would let her get that close. That someone _understood_ what that motion meant. That someone other than her siblings let her scent them and get close to vulnerable spots. Da's hand curled around the back of her neck even as her own arms flung around his shoulders.

Lucy didn’t care why or how her Da knew what was proper and what wasn’t. Didn’t care to think about why her Da knew all the traits Lucy's creatures had whispered into her ears and nudged her towards as a cub.

The sons of Adam from the Archenland had always muttered behind hands that Lucy was a feral thing. Their Ladies had always snickered and agreed, pointed gazes picking apart the tears in her dress and the flora woven through her hair. Lucy had always pretended she hadnt noticed, not when Edmund and Susan would get that pinched looks on their faces, leading to pointed questions of how the creatures in the other kingdoms were treated.

That conversation was the one Lucy would always pay attention to. Queen Lucy the Kind, Aslan had named her. No one had bothered to ask if she was meant to be kind to the children of Adam or to the creatures under her reign.

But Lucy knew she was considered feral. Knew that her siblings had given up trying to tame her when it became apparent Lucy was more Narnian then British. Someone had to speak to the trees after all. Someone had make treaties and broker deals with the creatures of Narnia. Someone had to be more _other_.

Lucy was feral.

_But so was Da._


	2. Edmund

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, this isn't the story that was supposed to be updated, but it wouldn't leave me alone.  
> Anyway, have fun, enjoy, and don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

“My darlings.” Their mother coos, hands sliding over tousled hair and red cheeks. “My babies, all home and safe.”

What she doesn’t say is _my children, ignorant of the world and returning because the war no longer hangs about our heads. My darlings who cannot, (do not, will not,) know of what took place over seas and underground to ensure you came home._

Their mother coos at their ability to stand together, to hold each other and support each other. Their mother coos and Edmund wants to be sick.

He cannot stand _not knowing._ Peter depends on Edmund to know, to understand, to ferret out the problems before the mutters reach Cair Paravel. It is Edmund who controls the dungeons. It is Edmund who orders the patrols and maintains the boundaries. It is Edmund who extends invitations to the other sons and daughters of men and ensures his siblings will be safe. It is Edmund who keeps his brother and sisters safe.

It is Edmund who works beside the Narnians, even if they do not want it.

Mr. Tumnus, on the days when his legs acted up and he was forced to lounge in a seat before a roaring fire, was known to give Edmund a baleful glare. The faun had never quiet forgiven Edmund for turning him in to the White Witch, had never gotten over the boy's blunder. _Do you miss her?_ He would hiss over his teacup, eyes ablaze with pain. _You do know that they say imitation is sincerest form of flattery. And look at what you have done._

Edmund never had an easy answer for the faun. Oh, he didn’t miss the witch. He couldn’t, not when the skin across his stomach would forever feel like the grit of stone and a section of his ribs always seemed to pulse with ice. Edmund could never miss the witch for she had never truly left him. Or at least, she had never left in any way that mattered.

Edmund was not a nice boy. He wasn’t like Peter, who could charm the crowds and force anyone to _be better._ He wasn’t like Susan, who held the ladies of the court in the palm of her hand and made the subjects of Narnia dance to her tune. And Edmund certainly wasn’t like Lucy.

No one was like Lucy.

But Edmund was not nice. He understood the creatures who had bent to the Witch. He understood why she could be alluring. A cold woman, cruel and dangerous but soft. She could be soft, the praise fell from her lips few and far between, but when they did…

The witch had known how to crawl into Edmund's mind and burrow behind his heart. Edmund was not a nice boy. He was a liar, a cheat, manipulative, and terribly fond of being better then anyone else _._ Edmund was not _nice_ , but Aslan had charged him with being _Just_.

Edmund, who had walked with the witch, who knew why one would willingly bend their knee and pledge to her cause. Edmund, who had sought power and instead gained chains about his feet and a death sentence above his head. Edmund, who understood that sometimes a second chance was all you needed to change things around. Edmund, who understood that sometimes a second chance couldn’t be offered at all.

Information had become Edmund’s coin and currency. He had been drawn in to the power and allure of the witch and had never thought to ask what was going on. He had walked into a war and assumed he was the one in the right, flattery and power drawing him further from the path he had sprinted away from. The lack of information had gotten himself imprisoned. The lack of information had nearly gotten him killed. It was something he swore would never happen again.

Of all his siblings, it was only Edmund who knew what it was like to be tied up and jeered at. It was only Edmund who knew the fear and loneliness of isolation behind iron bars and windows of ice. It is only Edmund who knows what it is like to realize death and fairness do not care that he is only a boy and ignorant to the world. The night Edmund watches his brother and sisters get crowned beside him, he realizes he would give _anything_ to keep it that way.

So, Edmund goes for a walk. He takes no one with him and leaves his crown far behind. (Lucy had watched from the shadows as he slipped through the corridors and into the woods, but out of all of them, he thinks she understands the wild need the most. It was Lucy who found the wardrobe after all, and it was Lucy who was given not just a vial of Firefly Juice but a dagger, just big enough to cut into nerves and sever arteries. And it is Lucy, with too long canines and too bright eyes who does not judge him when he stares off into the distance.) He leaves everything and before the sun rises, with the moon peaking out behind the clouds, Edmund slips back off the path and into the dark.

Edmund has two networks. Of course, this is an over simplification of the masterpiece Edmund creates but in essence, he has two networks. One, is of the Narnians who fought for Aslan. It is made up of the people who held out and managed to live under the Witch’s thumb. These people are admirable and loyal. Should something happen, Edmund would not hesitate to send his siblings into his network for their own safety.

The second group, Edmund does not speak about. Aslan might have won the war, might have driven off and killed the Witch. He might have even banished the dark armies. But Aslan had not killed everyone.

This network is made from the promise of coin and the threat of a dagger. It is formed by connections under Edmund's title of the dark prince, the named heir of the Witch. (It does not matter to the Witch’s allies that the Witch had only ever named him her heir in jest, knee deep in the snow and powder around his lips. The fact she had said anything at all was enough for the dark to keep an eye on the lonely traitor in Aslan’s court.) This network is formed through sly words, cold hearts, and the promise of safety or favours as long as the information is good.

It is Edmund who learns how to walk the ledge between Aslan's light and the Witch's darkness, and it is Edmund who learns the difference between _justice_ and _revenge._

And it is Edmund, who sits across from the professor he had never met _before_ but lived with for weeks on end, and looks him straight in the eye and says checkmate. The professor’s king falls to the board with a dull clank and Edmund can do little but stare in disgust at the fallen monarch. So much resting on the shoulders of a king that should mean little in the face of his people. A game finished by the simple act of removing one piece from the board.

Edmund knows, understands, and even maneuvered armies about like small tin soldiers and brass chess pieces. He knows how taking one piece, one small piece, off the board can change the direction of a whole battle.

Edmund had ensured it.

_It gets better._ The professor says, pipe held firmly in one hand as he gazes out a window knocked in by a cricket ball. _One day that world doesn’t tug and whisper for you to come back. One day, it will be as if you had never walked through that wardrobe at all._

And King Edmund the Just, the dark prince of Narnia, had stared the professor down without so much as moving a muscle. _And yet,_ Edmund says as Lucy goes running by, flowers in her hair and knives flashing around her fingers, _you kept the wardrobe all these years._

Needless to say, Edmund and the professor do not get on. But, a few days after Peter goes to speak to the old man a thick book labeled _The History of The World and Her Peoples_ is placed at his bedside. It is not much and he and the professor do not speak of it, but Edmund, in his quest to _understand_ this strange knew world, appreciates it all the same.

…***…

In the end, people are still fundamentally people, it does not matter if they have two legs, four legs, or none at all. A flash of coin will get a man to speak just as well as a bottle of wine. (Sometimes the wine works better, Edmund does not judge. The burn of hot coco and the powder of Turkish delight taught him that anyone would kneel for more, magic and a _burning need_ would make even the most prideful men bow.) Edmund does not judge men for their mistakes but he does judge them for their actions. He is King Edmund the Just after all.

People are still fundamentally people, and while Lucy takes to wandering the halls and bolting through the woods like a Wraith, it is Edmund who takes an apple from the Macready, flashes a cheeky smile to the Cook, and disappears to the stables.

From the stables, Edmund slips away into the paddocks, and then much later, into the village. Posters are plastered across windows, children do not play in the streets as much as they scurry home with brown paper packages, and the men who stumble down the street are either far too young or far too old. Edmund does not care. He slips into the gaggle of children, ducks his head down, and begs for work and sweets along with the rest of them. It has been nearly a year since he had worked the streets, nearly a decade since the last time he had needed to build a network up from scratch.

It is not hard.

Old women, not yet worn down from time and strain, pinch his cheeks and send him along with messages to other biddies down the street. Young mothers will give him a biscuit for bringing home mud covered toddlers. Men, broken from the last war or too old to be of use, direct him to carry crates, hitch up wagons, and deliver packages. It is menial work and near brainless, but Edmund keeps his head down and _carries on_.

Slowly, his network grows. He hears broadcasts over the wireless, he reads newspapers between wrapping fish and delivering mail, he learns who works with the Royal Army and who does not. He is given notes from one, two, three villages over from grandmothers thankful he packed away their things, from children who cry being separated from their friends. Edmund keeps his head down and he listens.

The war is coming to an end.

Edmund doesn’t give a sigh of relief. Not yet. The end is coming but it is not yet over.

He hears whispers, he sees men who are far too thin, far too raggedy to be from these homespun villages, and wonders. Food is scarce, people are lean, and when bellies ache, tempers fray. But these people, these men, he sees not desperation but determination. He sees himself, wrists bound, ice curling around his ankles and knees, and a frozen cup of water beside a moldy loaf of bread.

He sees a faun, frail from beatings and foolhardy with hope.

Edmund does not draw attention to these men, these men with French, American, foreign accents. Instead, he leaves behind apples, picked straight from the trees of the Professor’s estate. He leaves behind apples and notes of the last nearly hidden codes in the BBC radio broadcasts. He doesn’t know what they mean, does not have enough information to even hazard a guess at the particulars, but he knows enough to understand that these men might be here on orders or seeking a way back to their headquarters.

Edmund leaves behind apples and slowly builds a network.

…***…

They are at home. Lucy follows their father like a pup, her milk teeth and blunted claws wooing their neighbors into thinking Lucy is a gentle thing. Edmund does not care enough to tell the people they have the wrong sister if they wish for gentleness. Lucy is kind, but she never specified to who.

(Their mother despairs, Edmund finds out, his breathing slow and steady from where he is hunkered down behind the sofa. She does not think her youngest loves her anymore. Her darling baby girl, sent away for her own good, left to the kindness of strangers, does not care for her anymore. A betrayal for a betrayal, his mother sighs over a glass of sherry. A betrayal for a betrayal.)

They are at home. Peter is gone more days then not, his eyes pinched in a way that make Edmund scurry further into the shadows, ears to the ground and eyes searching for the betrayer. Peter is not being targeted, food is appearing on the table quicker then expected, with a quality their mother is unused to, and Edmund chomps at the bit.

They are at home. Edmund is not needed. The backup king, the boy who turned away from Aslan and who crawled into the shadows and stayed there. The dark prince. He is the abandoned and the abandoner. He is the one who Peter should be dragging about and siccing on the unclothed individuals who had shared to make Susan tremble in the shelter, her fingers twisting into braids that meant nothing to these uneducated people.

(This is England. Not Narnia. They are not kings and queens. They are not targets of assignations and political intrigue. They are safesafesafesafesafe.)

(One day, that might not sound like a lie.)

They are at home, Edmund is behind the house, an apple on the stoop and a stick that is far too light and much too short held in hand as he dances through the steps he had first seen in the Witch's camp and then later in Aslan's. Edmund is not a kind boy. He is not kind, his strikes are too rough, his breathing too erratic, and his steps unbalanced.

He is at home and he knows _nothing_.

He is useless.

Edmund is…

There is anger and there is rage. Edmund is not sure which sits behind his ribs and boils into the bottom of his lungs. For all he knows, the heat in his blood might be grief. But the cold? The clinical hatred? That is the Witch. It is always the Witch.

( _Where did you get this?_ Mother asks, a finger coming up to trace the jagged line Lucy had never been able to get out of Edmund's skin. _You didn’t have this before.)_

(The Witch had been about to stab Peter. Peter, who was too blunt, to rough, and dragged Edmund about by the collar. Peter who was too small in too big armor, playing at a war that was not his to fight, all because Edmund had thought he knew better. And Edmund, the dark prince, the traitor, the one who had Aslan _murdered_ , stepped out in front. It was his fault. His fault. His fault.)

(And then Aslan came back, and Edmund was too busy dying by inches to care.)

Edmund is dancing, an unbalanced stick held in one hand and a lifetime worth of anger curled in the other. He can’t do this. He can’t keep going on like this, pain haunting his skin, the Witch's fingers brushing his cheek, cold iron about his ankles. He needs his network. He needs his shadows.

He needs…

Behind him, a twig snaps.

“This came for you and Peter today. I wouldn't let your mother see it if I were you."

Edmund spins in place, his brain chanting dangerdangerdangerdanger even as his father slips back outside of his reach, a slight grimace on his face.

"Do watch where you swing that please." His father says mildly, what looks to be an unwieldy package sitting in his arms. "I rather like my limbs attached to my body."

Edmund can only stare. Before, when their father was home and the world wasn't exploding with dust and screams, his father had dotted on the girls, praised Peter, and largely left Edmund alone. Admittedly, that was probably for the best.

"It seems you and your brother made an impression on the old man you stayed with." His father says conversationally as he backs up to the stoop and places the package on the uneven brick. "Since Peter isn't here, I don't suppose you want to open it?"

Looking at the package, the small coil of anger, grief, pain, and lord knew what else, unwound the tiniest bit. It wasn't hard to figure out what was inside, Edmund had been in charge of enough supply chains and political gifts to recognize a weapons box on sight, even if it was wrapped up in brown paper and string.

Edmund doesn't notice his father taking a step back as he crouches down and rips into the package, all sense of property left over from King Edmund, gone in the face of boyish excitement. From the professor’s, they had only been allowed to take one dagger. Peter's knife had stayed with him, but Edmund had made sure the girls knew where the dagger was, slipped between pillows and mattresses, tucked away at the last safe heaven in their home. Four kings and queens, four children. Two blades between them. It was a nightmare, a problem of epic proportions that Edmund had yet to be able to solve under the eagle-eyed watch of his mother.

She was worse than the Beavers when it was all said and done.

But this package, this package changed everything.

Edmund looked down into the box, eyes roaming over the two swords held inside. They were not Narnian make, nor were they the work of the dwarrow, but from appearance alone, they seemed to pass muster. There were simple adornments gilded into the hilts and Edmund knew these blades.

He knew them.

He and Peter had dueled with these in the spare room while Lucy and Susan attempted to crawl back through the wardrobe to their people. But, they had been forced to leave the swords behind and in truth, Edmund hadn’t realized the Professor had cared enough to send them the swords without question.

(It was rare for Edmund to be surprised and when he was, it was rare the surprise was so pleasant.)

His father whistles. “The old man must have really liked you two boys. Did he teach you?”

Edmund doesn’t reply. Instead, he reaches down and pulls out his sword, relishing the sound of the blade slipping from the sheath. Out of the two brothers, it is Edmund who is the better swordsman. Peter might have had a further reach, but it is Edmund who had the better stamina. It is Edmund who trained on his restless nights (there had been a lot of those) and it is Edmund who had learned about as many weapons as he could.

Being proficient wasn’t enough. Being better wasn’t enough. Edmund, who relied on daggers and poisons, blades and silence, had to be able to improvise with anything and everything. Edmund wasn’t simply good, he was great.

“Let’s see how you hold up against your old man.”

Edmund looks up sharply, reality sinking in quickly. His father pulls out Peter’s blade and the man simply smiles at Edmund’s concerned look. This cannot end well, Edmund thinks. He had commanded armies. He had trained recruits. He had slipped into the shadows and made problems disappear. Having a sword fight with him is a bad idea.

Edmund cannot even explain to his father how bad of an idea this is.

Then…

Then his father steps down into the yard and gives Edmund a sly smile. Wary, Edmund slips back into a guard and watches as his father paces forward. Peter’s sword is spun in a quick movement Edmund had seen Peter do time and time again to readjust his grip, and it takes everything Edmund has not to react. Edmund had never felt the need to show off with flashy moves, they did little for him in his profession, but there is no reasonable excuse for his father to know these movements.

Edmund quickly jumps out of range from his father and stays on guard. This isn’t possible. Nothing had suggested that his father could handle a sword. This doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t make any sense at all.

Edmund throws up a desperate block, cursing his shortness and unfamiliar range. If this was happening back in Narnia, Edmund would have been dead from his hesitation.

His father leans forward, a grin stretching from ear to ear. “You don’t know everything Ed.”

Just for a moment, the ice in his ribs seems to crack. This is England, this is home. And here, there might just be a puzzle interesting enough to keep Edmund entertained.

The swords meet in a clash.

“Do you want to know a secret?” His father says as Edmund slips back onto the defensive.

Edmund only smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the people who asked if Mr. Pevensie was a werewolf, you made my day. But seriously guys, there will be an answer, but not in this chapter.  
> *smiles*  
> Have Fun!


	3. Susan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Its a miracle!  
> Unlike the other two chapters, this chapter focuses on Susan both in Narnia and outside of Narnia. Most of this chapter stemmed from problems I had about how her character is portrayed by parts of the fandom and also covers a lot of my own personal headcannons about the series and Susan herself  
> This chapter also has more words then the other two chapters combined and for the first time in the history of this fic, I have some warnings to be given.  
> Warnings:  
> -background character death (no one we know)  
> -heavy angst  
> -self esteem issues  
> -hinted PTSD  
> Sorry guys, this chapter ran away with me and I just held on for dear life. As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me.  
> -Lost

_You are so much like your mother._

The first time, Susan took the words to be a compliment. She beamed with a smile that would later make boys swoon and Peter scowl at whoever looked a bit too interested. The second time someone said it, Susan looked up to her mother, took in the dark curls, the ruby lips, and thought _mummy is the prettiest lady in the whole wide world._

Being like her mother was possibly the best compliment anyone could give Susan and the girl worked hard to live up to the woman. Although the years, Susan had lost track of the times she had been compared to her mother and eventually, she lost track of when being like her mother had switched from being a compliment to being a curse.

Susan loved her mother. She did. She loved how her mother could keep a house, raise two (and later four) children, have a loving husband, cook, sew, create, and stretch what little funds they had to keep everyone happy and healthy.

But, well, Susan did not want to be her mother.

Susan wanted something more.

Helen Pevensie had her first son six months after her marriage. She had an education that ended at a grade two level, her husband was a laboring man, and it was clear Helen would never be anything more than a mother. She was content with that.

Susan was not.

Susan, who had stolen Peter's schoolbooks and sped through them faster then anyone had expected. Susan, who from the moment she could walk, had taken down the desk dictionary from the shelf where it sat and had flipped through, mesmerized by the words. Susan did not care for colors and pictures. Susan wanted words and explanations.

Susan wanted to be more then her mother ever was.

…***…

Susan was just like her mother. She was smart, pretty, and everyone only saw what they wanted to see.

And when Lucy came along, Susan all but became a mother. Peter, who was too headstrong and too stubborn, Edmund who had just learned to walk and shriek NO and now little Lucy, who only seemed to calm when father rocked her and whispered stories into her feather light curls. There was no one else to step up. Mother was ill, Lucy's long and difficult birth had taken its toll on the woman and Susan stepped up without complaint.

Susan was just like her mother, able to take Peter to task, able to redirect Edmund's hyper tendencies into something productive, and Lucy, once she calmed, was easy to carry and sooth while Susan cleaned and polished.

…***…

_You are so much like your mother._

“Of course.” Susan would sniff. “It is only logical that I help out around the house. Lord knows Peter won’t.”

…***…

 _You are so much like your mother_.

There is a war. Peter is stoic as father marches away. Edmund is angry and Peter's arms bear the bruises. Lucy will not stop crying. Helen dies not say a word.

It is Susan who coaxes everyone home that day.

The house is filled with fake smiles and hushed tears. Lucy will not stop clutching the bear father gave her. Edmund is brash and has fallen in with the neighborhood boys, coming home with skinned knees and bruised eyes. Peter comes home with a rejection letter from the army. The next day, he picks up a job and slides his pay to Mother without a word.

Food is difficult to produce for four growing children. A tasteful meal is even harder.

For their birthdays that year, each child is given a homemade outfit and a penny toy. (Susan does not receive one at all. Her mother knows Susan too well to think the somber eyed girl would want a toy when their bellies are rumbling. Peter is given one of fathers pocket knives.)

This war is supposed to be the war to end all wars. Privately, Susan thinks they said that about the last one too.

…***…

_You are so much like your mother._

Lucy is crying in her sleep, the estate they have been placed in is _too big, too quiet, too new._ Edmund is angry and sullen. Peter is too quiet. She needs to keep them all together. She should be grateful they were placed with this kind old man who can accept four children.

She should be grateful.

Mostly, Susan is tired.

There are hundreds of thousands of books. There is more information crammed into this house then Susan has ever seen in her life. She should be grateful. She should be grateful. She should be grateful.

Mostly though, she sees the face of her mother in the mirror and sees her life unfolding like a roadmap, and she wants to rage. Susan wants more then _this._ She does not want to be her mother. She does not want to be a footnote in history, swept away with the bombs and the dust.

Susan wants to be more.

…***….

_You are so much like your mother._

Lucy finds a wardrobe. A cricket ball goes through the window. Edmund and Lucy are at each other’s throats. And there is a forest inside the wardrobe. Really, Susan thinks, the others should be a little more cautious and surprised. Nothing makes sense. Animals talk, a faun has been arrested for breaking a law that _Lucy helped break,_ and apparently, they are meant to save this world. Susan can barely keep her family together; she is not going to fight in a war when her mother sent her away from the last one.

Edmund walks into the arms of a real-life witch and is being hurt terribly. Lucy is crying, there are _beavers_ leading them through an external winter, and whenever they stop for a break, Susan looks at Peter and thinks _none of this would have happened if we had just turned back._

She pretends not to see how Peter's shoulders get tense the longer Edmund is missing and she decidedly does not think about how Edmund was not dressed for the cold, had two scraped knees, and an anger that had appeared one day and never left.

…***…

Santa Claus appears, because of course he does, and Lucy is given a dagger of all things. Peter has a sword. A sword. He is more likely to stab himself then do any real damage with that thing. And Susan, Susan is given a bow, a quiver that never empties, and a horn to call for aid.

It feels like a joke.

_You are so much like your mother._

Susan is supposed to be quiet. A little girl that takes care of her siblings and maintains peace. A horn will do her no good. The kindness of strangers has rarely done any good. Everyone wants something. The beavers want a savior, the faun wanted her sister, the witch wants her family dead, and lord knows what the professor got out of keeping them.

Still, Santa turns to leave and Susan thinks that none of this is fair. Her sister is given a dagger, her brother is given a sword, Susan doesn’t know how to use a bow that apparently will never miss as long as she trusts it, and what about Edmund?

What is Edmund going to receive? The poor boy already has two hard knocks and lord knows he made a mistake but he didn’t know better. He didn’t know better. Does he not deserve something too? Is he to be punished on top of what he has already done to himself? Susan grits her teeth and is about to slip forward when the man instead climbs up onto his sleigh and takes off.

Susan is left standing in the snow with nothing but a question in her throat and a bundle of weaponry in her hands.

…***…

 _If Mother knew what we were doing!_ Susan’s voice goes shrill. There are wolves all around. Lucy is clutching Peter's hip and not for the first time, Susan looks up and sees Peter’s shoulders and thinks of her father. Only, this time, she thinks of her father walking away and her mother staring after him in silence.

 _Mother isn’t here!_ Peter snaps, frustration making him raise his voice.

Susan snaps her mouth shut even as she wants to scream that _mother isn’t here, but I am. And I know what we are doing, and I know what will happen if you die. Because I am just like mother, but you are just like father and you are going to leave us._

She wants to rage and haul Peter beside her and beg him _not to leave us. Please Peter. I’ve already lost one brother, I can’t lose you too._

But she says none of those things and instead grabs Peter's arm and screams at her father’s phantom _that just because some man in a red coat gives you a sword, it doesn’t make you a hero!_

(She ignores the voice that hisses to her _just like how having a midwife give you a baby while your mother screams on the floor, doesn’t make you a mother?_ )

(Edmund and Lucy are not hers, but Susan has always been more like a Mother then a sister, hasn’t she?)

Still, the ice breaks, they wash down stream, and Susan crawls out onto the shore and looks at her brother and thinks, we made it.

We made it.

And then Peter holds up an empty coat and the rage Susan keeps tucked away behind ribs and under her heart bursts out in a hissed _what have you done?_

(She doesn’t know if she is asking Peter or herself.)

Susan is supposed to keep her siblings safe. She is supposed to keep them together. Her little brother is being held by a witch, they are going to see a man (please let it be a man, Susan doesn’t know if she can handle another talking animal) named Aslan who is going to get her brother back, and Susan is tired.

She is tired.

Lucy crawls up onto the shore under her own power and Susan does her best not to sob. Mr. Beaver leans towards Lucy. _Your brother will take care of ya._

Susan doesn’t even protest. Peter had already lost Lucy once and Edmund had wandered off in search of a killer. But, the beaver's assurances and Lucy's giggles feel so much like a slap in the face. Peter will keep everything together. Peter will keep them safe. Peter will stand before them.

Susan looks away.

_You are so much like your mother._

…***…

Aslan is not a man.

Susan is of the belief she should not be judged for the hysterical laughter that breaks out the moment they are left in a tent and given clothes to change into.

Aslan is a lion.

A lion.

What’s next, giants and cave trolls?

…***…

A faun takes her to the side and shows her how to maintain her bow and armor. The motions he runs her through are surprisingly soothing. It is just like sewing, Susan thinks as she runs a stick of wax over her bow string. Once you learn the motions, maintaining and mending her armor is something she can get lost in for hours.

The faun also tries to teach her how to shoot.

This does not go over as well.

By the evening, Susan is screaming at Peter that she _knows she is supposed to trust the bloody bow but how can she do that? You can’t trust a thing that isn’t alive._

Susan spins on her heel, marches back to the tent, and in a fit of anger, kicks the chest that holds her clothing. Immediately, she begins to sob. Now she has a pained foot, her fingers are worn from her repeated practice, and she also yelled at Peter in front of the entire camp. In the middle of her breakdown, there is a rustling outside. Still embarrassed and half ready to go another round, she flings herself outside and forces herself to look at her brother's face.

Only, that is not her brother.

A female centaur looks down at her, not with pity, but something Susan thinks might be determination. _The men,_ she says, her lips firming into a thin line as she looks back to the training ground, _like to think there is a glorious reason for battle. They like to think that every sacrifice means something._

_It doesn’t._

_They like to think that every strike is without anger. That every blade is forged good and strong. You, my dear,_ calloused hands tip Susan's head back slightly _are bent iron. But you have also been reformed in fire. You have anger. You have rage. Use it._

Susan stares up at the wild woman with tears in her eyes and anger on her cheeks. _I don’t…_

The woman shushes her and gently leads her back to the range. _You say you cannot trust anyone else. Then don’t. Trust that you will be the one to stand behind your brother and protect his back. Trust that you will stand strong while everyone else falls. Trust that you are enough._

And Susan can only stare at the target as the words vibrate round and round her head.

Trust that you are enough.

You are enough.

The next shot is not a bulls-eye but it is within a thumb width of the red dot.

…***…

Lucy throws a dagger into the center of the target almost up the hilt. It is her third throw. The fauns call her a prodigy. Susan sees nothing but Lucy running towards danger with daggers in her hands and wonders if it would be kinder to steal away with Lucy in the night then to let the girl run screaming into battle.

Susan wasn’t even this terrified when she thought Lucy had been lost to the river.

…***…

Edmund is going to be killed, sacrificed on a stone table to appease some truce that Susan knows nothing about. Her baby brother, her little baby brother, with a split lip, skinned knees, frozen fingers and a positively terrified expression, is going to die and there is nothing Susan can do about it.

Susan is going to be sick. Her mother will be furious. Her mother is going to weep and wail. Her mother _is going to murder her._ She can’t change anything. She can’t even get the words out to beg for them to take her instead. She can’t even grab Peter and for the first time, ask for assurances that everything will be alright.

Edmund is going to die.

Edmund is going to die, and Susan won’t even be able to bury his body.

Then Edmund is back. He is not dead. Aslan is going in his stead and Susan is slipping through the woods beside Lucy, trying to think of any reasonable excuse to make the little girl turn back. Somebody is going to die, Susan thinks as she places her hand in the mane of a lion. Somebody is going to die and she will do anything to make sure it is not her family.

She is very much like her mother.

…***…

There is a blade.

There is silence.

And Aslan is dead.

Susan is left staring at a corpse and thanking the dear lord that it is a lion dead on the stone table rather then a human boy who thought himself too good and old enough.

Lucy is crying. Susan is being dragged out to look at a corpse and Lucy wants the ropes gone. Its funny, in a detached sort of way, that neither of them had brought daggers. They were going to war in a few hours and neither of them had thought to bring any form of protection. Their soldiers would be appalled.

The trees have been alerted (and that is a terrifying statement in of itself) and Peter now knows it is up to him to lead an army. And oh God, is this what her mother felt when their father left?

Lucy is still crying, there are tears on Susan's cheeks, and for the first time since the deed was done, Susan wonders who will mourn Aslan. Oh, the Narnians will mourn, but who does Susan go to explain how Aslan died? Is there a pride of lions Susan should be looking for? Does he have a wife? Do lions even marry? Oh lord, does Aslan have children?

Standing Lucy up, Susan begins to lead her gently away. This is important, Susan thinks as she leads Lucy down the steps. Susan is not gentle. She doesn’t have the time to be, not when she is running after three children, teaching herself how to fight, and is generally too busy to even remember to eat something. But this is important and Susan, brash, angry, enraged Susan, will be gentle just this once.

Susan hugs Lucy to her side as she stares into the trees and she thinks that being caught by the housekeeper could not have been worse then this. She makes it three steps, muttering empty words to a distraught little girl, when suddenly there is a crack. Susan falls to her knees and scrambles back, her eyes wide as Lucy screams about missing bodies and traitors. And Susan, Susan is useless in the face of this problem.

Something stinks into the bottom of her stomach and Susan realizes with striking clarity that she is about to die. She is going to be killed by whatever managed to _steal_ the body of a lion. She grabs Lucy and shoves her towards the woods. She is willing to remain behind. Lucy, sweet, kind, gentle Lucy, will need all the time Susan can buy her to get away.

_You are so much like your mother._

…***…

Her brothers are fighting in a war that is not their own, Susan is coming with another army and a resurrected lion general, and all that anger, all that hate in her veins, it keeps her going even when the other archers have switched to blades and hand to hand.

Her quiver will never empty. Her aim will never flatter. Her job will never be done.

(No one ever mentions how Susan's fingers bleed when her finger guards are dropped in a struggle and she continued to shoot. No one mentions the bone deep bruising on her forearm from the snapback of her drawstring. No one mentions how Susan hitches the bow to her shoulder, pulls out an arrow and stabs a creature through the eye when she is no longer able to safely use the bow in such close quarters.)

Susan has killed. There is blood dripping from her fingers, her skirts are ripped, somewhere along the line she gained a long gash on the top of her thigh, and she is ashamed to admit her palms are skinned from where she tripped down part of the hill.

Susan has killed. She didn’t have time to watch the creature die, she simply moved on to the next shot. She doesn’t know how many of her arrows were kill shots. She doesn’t know how many she doomed to a slow death. She isn’t sure she wants to.

Susan has killed.

As she walks closer to her brothers, Susan ducks behind an outcrop of rock and throws up. She hasn’t eaten all day, the bile tears at her throat, her eyes water, and _everything hurts._

Susan has killed.

(It doesn’t matter she hadn’t killed a human.)

Part of Susan wants to break down and cry. Her skirts and her boots have the splatter of sick, there is blood, gore, and muck all through her clothing and hair, and Susan hates everything.

Still, she has a duty. She has to find her family. She has to find her family. She has to find…

Susan leans forward and is sick again.

…***…

Edmund isn’t dying anymore. Lucy is darting around the battlefield saving as many people as she can. Peter is meeting with Aslan to organize some form of extraction point, medical aid, food, and hammer out what should be done with the dead.

Susan has her hands carding through Edmund's hair as he breathes in and out, in and out, in and out, in and…

Susan is useless in the face of a war and _she is so much like her mother._

…***…

The Witch has been dead for months, Narnia has quickly switched over to spring, and Susan finds herself at a loss.

Queen Susan the Gentle.

The gentle.

Susan takes the circlet meant to be worn at formal parties from her head and spins it round and round between her fingers. The gentle. She is meant to be gentle.

Gentle would fit Lucy, Susan thinks. Susan is not kind. She does not know to be. There were three screaming children, her mother had never truly recovered from Lucy's birth and her father worked, worked, worked. Gentleness was used sparingly for when little sisters were sick and brothers needed to be built back up from scraps gone sideways. To be gentle was to take time away from mending, fixing, learning.

Being gentle had no use when there was hardly enough time to be _kind._

From her perch in the window, Susan watches as her little brother sneaks away into the shadows. She is not gentle. If she were gentle, she would be dragging her brother back before he was knifed in an alley and left to rot. She would be doing more then turning a blind eye and letting him throw away his second chance.

Susan is not gentle.

She does not know how to be.

…***…

Peter is drowning in the rules of the court. Edmund is in the shadows more then he is in the light. And Lucy, kind little Lucy, has disappeared into the woods behind the castle.

Susan does not know what to do. She has a bow but this problem cannot be solved with force. She has a horn, but aid there is no more aid to be given. Mr. Tumnus is running himself ragged digging up relics of a time long past when sons and daughters of Adam last held the throne, and Susan can do little more then sit here and smile prettily.

She is very much like her mother.

…***…

Susan has nothing to do. Oh, she has mending, washing, the daily meals, and general house keeping duties to keep track of, but as a queen, she is not allowed to participate in any of these activities. Besides, there are only so many times one can go to the training grounds and fire arrow after arrow until the targets look like an offended porcupine.

Peter has his court finally settled, Edmund has his network, and Lucy has her own court in the woods Susan likes to pretend to know nothing about.

Susan has nothing to do.

Except…

Edmund drags her down to the docks, his hands clenched and his face white. _I found them._ He says. There is no pride in his voice. No victory in his eyes. _They are ours. Narnians. Forced to flee when the Witch came. They fled to the neighboring countries and well…_ he pauses, his hand hovering over a doorknob, the rage in his eyes nearly setting the ship alight. _I’ve already sent the creatures to Lucy. She has them handled, but I thought you might have a better idea for these ones._

Susan is not gentle, but she takes in the rage, takes in the helplessness, and she steps in front of her brother and goes down into the belly of the ship in his stead. Susan is not gentle. She does not know how to be. But, she will take on whatever horrors she has to so that her brother might sleep peacefully at night.

Her skirts are gathered in one hand, a dagger is sheathed at her wrist, and Susan wonders if she is being called because Edmund has found criminals and their country is not yet ready for prisons. Susan does not like death, has no taste for it really, but she is willing to sign her name to a document if it means Peter does not have to get his hands red.

Susan is not gentle but she is pragmatic.

There is a gasp in the hold, Susan looks out into the dark, and her stomach drops down into her perfect little shoes. She does not need to call Edmund down, she does not need him to explain to her what he has found. A people fled from hostile territory. A desperate people turned to their allies. And their allies took them in. For a price.

 _Slavery_. Susan hisses, her eyes roaming over the people hunkered down in the ship. She doesn’t have time to register more then a few children shoved hastily behind men before a man steps forward, head down, eyes to the floor and asks _where would you like us My Lady?_

And Susan, Susan _freezes._

Susan, in her finery and perfect hair. Susan, who has not gone hungry since the castle kitchens had been set up. Susan who remembers her mother saying she was going on a diet and didn’t need any of the already thin soup. Susan, who remembers her mother whisper-arguing with her father about not owning the home, and how were they to make their monthly rent?

Susan, who read all her history and devoured all her sciences at school, looks at the man and says _welcome to Narnia. Welcome home._

She settles there, in the dark of the hold, and wiggles her fingers in a wave at the nearest little girl. These people are filthy, she can smell weeks worth of travel, and to be frank, Susan does not care. She helped raise three children, she fought in a war. She has killed, she has butchered, she has seen (has done) worse.

These people do not trust her. They have no reason to, and Susan does not push.

After a few hours, Susan crawls out of the hold, an infant born into slavery and the darkness of a ship held in one hand, looks over to Edmund who was standing sentry at the top of the hold and tells him that she wont be going home any time soon. Behind her, a group of wary freemen stumble into the fading light and look upon the shore with such dim hope, Susan can do little but hold her head higher and curl the baby into her shoulder.

Susan is not gentle but right now, these people need someone who will defend them, and that? That Susan can do.

…***…

Susan thumps a stack of papers onto Peter's desk and gets straight to the point. _We can do better._

(They are fifteen and fourteen years old. They shouldn’t be having to make anything better. They shouldn’t be having to do this at all.)

Peter looks at her with wide eyes and a nervous sort of gesture and Susan doesn’t have time to be dealing with older brothers and over protective instincts. _We can do better._ She says, flipping through the parchment. _A hundred-year winter has left us with little food and little time. Crops do not grow like magic. Food will not appear without trade and diplomacy. If we want food, we have to start now, before the planting season passes._

_Edmund has found human Narnians. Some of them are ill. Where are we going to produce medicine from? How are we going to support those who cannot work? Do we have money? Is there a stipend we can afford to give to the elderly?_

Susan pulls out a page and turns it so Peter can read. _Slavery is running strong to the south. Our people, our non-humans, are being sold as sideshow freaks._

(Is it any wonder Lucy hisses at the humans who have wandered into their boarders? Is it any wonder Lucy has nothing to do with Peter's court when this is how her people, the people who have claimed her, are being treated? Susan has ignored these signs, pretended they didn’t exist. She thought Lucy was simply playing at being a grown up. She thought Lucy was playing.)

( _You are so much like your mother.)_

 _Edmund’s people found the last shipment by accident, but I think we can find them on purpose. Let Edmund go to the docks. Let him search. We can bring our people home._ Susan gives Peter a look and she tries not to bite at her lips when he holds her gaze. _While he works, we have to start an overhaul here. We have to organize and set up a system. It’s fine and dandy to have an army, but what will they eat? What is their pay? Can we afford it?_

For a moment, Peter doesn’t speak. (They are children. Their mother sent them away from a war and they landed feet first into another one. They are kings and queens, puppet a to a Council who uses them as figure heads.) Susan is proposing they take an avid interest, that they step up and become more.

(Susan the gentle.)

(There is nothing gentle here.)

 _Lucy and Edmund have already conquered their courts._ Susan says as she spreads out the pages upon pages of facts and figures she had teased out of both the freemen and the castle inhabitants. _Let us conquer ours._

Peter looks down at his sister's angry scrawl and runs a finger over the pages Susan has yet to reveal. He heaves in a breath and lets it out slow before asking; _What do you need me to sign?_

…***…

Susan knocks her shoulder against Peter's. They are on top of the tallest tower in the castle. The stars shine bright over their heads and even though it has been almost two years since they first stumbled through the wardrobe, Susan still looks for planes overhead and ducks when she hears a sharp whistle.

Tomorrow she leaves for the east. The neighboring kingdom has offered to supplement Narnia's poor yield for an exchange of five hundred dwarrow made swords. Narnia is not in a position to say no. Susan is not in a position to say yes.

Susan is going to investigate if this request for arms was made due to the higher quality of Narnian steel which has been rare during the witch's reign or if it was a poorly concealed attempt to gain arms before a march on their boarders.

Peter does not say be careful. Susan does not make any promises. They both look up to the stars.

 _You'll need an entourage._ Peter says softly, his fingers curling over the stone of the tower.

Susan thinks to the women she had first met hunkered down in the hold of a ship and smiles softly. She is not gentle, she does not know how to be, but those women did not need gentleness. They needed direction. They needed guidance. They begged not to be defenseless, to be the ones to stand between their children and the darkness, and Susan did not argue.

Susan gave them knives and told them to gut whoever tried to take them away. Susan gave them bows and taught them how to pick off an enemy before they knew you were there. Susan gave them sharp hairpins, rings that shined prettily in the light and held stones sharp enough to slice open skin. Susan told them to defend themselves and trust that they are enough.

Susan thinks to the women who did not yet have children but learned how to fight with a righteous anger in their eyes and fury in their fists. She thinks to the girls who tottered after her and begged for stories and giggled at the exaggerated voices Susan puts on. She thinks to the humans, to those that took her lessons and made themselves _better._ There is no other she would trust to protect her while she searches for betrayal in peacetime. There is no one she would rather have with her more.

 _I know some girls itching to stretch their legs._ Susan says to Peter as she turns on her heel and goes to alert her people. _I think they would do well for a journey such as this._

Susan is not gentle. She is not kind. She is not good. Susan is greedy with her family and selfish with what is hers. Susan is not gentle but with these people, these girls, she doesn’t have to be.

…***…

Susan's girls are perfect. They bat an eye and slip open a fan and diplomats are stumbling over themselves to answer whatever question they might have.

Susan is not like Edmund. She does not need to know of plots and rumors. What she needs to know is what pressure point to push. Who can she make bend to her will? There are laws and regulations Susan needs to see implemented, both in Narnia and abroad. If that means pushing and flirting until something gives, then that is what Susan will do.

…***…

They are older, Susan does not know how old. Time is different here, days mean nothing, not truly. You count by the seasons instead. But they are older. The baby she carried out of the ship’s hold is now running and dancing with other children, happiness shinning in her face. The girls Susan has taught to be protectors and defenders, are now mothers.

Narnia is thriving. There is peace. Edmund is due home any day and Lucy sent message via the trees that she is returning from her jaunt through the northern mountains. Peter has asked her if she would like to start a family with anybody.

For years she and Peter have been pretending the offers of marriage do not exist when they fall across their desks. So, Susan shakes her head. No, she does not want marriage. She does not want children. She has her girls. She has her ladies to train. What need of she for children of her own when she already has near a dozen scurrying around her feet and calling her Aunt?

Susan does not want children because she already has them.

(She is nothing like her mother.)

…***…

Susan in fourteen. Her lips are ruby red and her dress has been mended so many times she is surprised there is not more thread then cloth.

Susan is fourteen.

Susan is fourteen and she looks in the mirror and sees her mother’s face. Something behind her ribcage cracks and _shatters._ When she comes back to herself, Peter is holding on the floor of the wash closet and rocking her back and forth.

 _I know._ He whispers into her hair. _I know._

...***…

Susan spends most of her time in a daze. She is fourteen, her hands are red and chapped from where she scrubs and scrubs and scrubs, and she doesn’t know what to do. They are going home, everything they own fits into four small suitcases and two handbags.

In one final sweep of her and Lucy’s room, Susan finds a teddy bear she vaguely remembers from her childhood. Lucy had adored the gift from their father, had held it so tightly that the stitching had popped when Edmund had attempted to steal it away. Susan hadn’t seen it since they had fallen into Narnia.

There is a layer of dust over the bear, the eyes are glazed, and Susan grabs the toy and throws it against the wall. The bear hits with a soft thump and it falls to the ground without protest. The bear had been a gift, something for Lucy to hold onto while their father went away. Susan ignores the voice that reminds her the bear was also a promise. She doesn’t know if the others remember that father has a second bear folded away in between his uniform and beside a letter from their mother.

The bears were supposed to be a reminder. _I will return._

Susan looks at the promise in her hands and wants to scream.

_I will return._

The irony does not escape her.

(She wants to go home. She wants to go home. She wants to go home.)

(Home is thirteen little girls who begged for treats with sticky fingers and learned how to make arrows before they learned how to tie shoes.)

A smoldering anger curls in Susan’s blood and she finds herself picking up the bear again and holding it in trembling hands. She isn’t sure if she is going to throw it again or rip it to shreds but Susan has to do something. There is a fire in her veins, and it wants to ragerageragerage.

Behind her, the bedroom door flies open and Lucy brushes past Susan without looking up. _Have you seen my boots, or did I leave them in Narnia?_

Susan stares down at the bear. Her hands are still trembling.

Lucy slides to a stop in front of Susan, her face brightening at the sight of the bear. _Oh, that would work for target practice! Ed and I have been looking for a new target._

There is a lump in Susan’s throat as Lucy grabs the bear from her hands. Part of Susan wants to snarl and grab the bear back. Part of her wants to scream and rage and tell Lucy to go find something else, anything else. Instead, Susan stands there, and watches Lucy run back out of the room, bear tucked under one arm, a knife Susan thinks might be from the gaudy suit of armor up the hall, held in the other hand.

There is a soft ringing in her ears and Susan only manages to make herself move when she hears Lucy call out to Edmund.

…***…

In the end, she is far too late. The remains of the bear are scraps upon the ground. A mixture of sawdust and fluff litters the roots of the tree. The bear is gone. The promise has been ripped to shreds and Susan sinks to her knees, fingers scrambling in the dirt in a frantic attempt to put the toy back together.

(Susan’s hopes are dust on the wind, and she _is never going home._ )

…***…

 _You were a gentle girl, once._ The professor says, his pipe smoking in one hand and his other holding down a page in some tomb Susan can’t identify from her seat in his study. _Was Narnia that cruel to you?_

( _Hail, Queen Susan the Gentle! Long Live the Queen!)_

_(Auntie, I want to be gentle too.)_

_Clearly you did not know me that well._ She says, her hands clenching as the professor lets out a sigh. Susan does not lower herself to the indignity of answering his silent reproachful look. Instead, she gazes out into the estate and pretends that she can see her girls training in the courtyard.

Even here it seems she will be haunted by that word.

Even here she will be expected to be kind. To be gentle. To be something other then what she is.

After a few minutes of silence, the professor waves a dismissal. Susan, a queen and unused to being commanded by anyone but her siblings, takes the gesture silently and stiffly. She is not a queen here. She is not the one with respect and the power to command armies and level kingdoms.

Susan is not at home.

…***…

The train station is a blur, Susan has just enough presence of mind to keep the four of them together and to hiss out threats whenever one of the boys crosses a line. Lucy, Susan is not concerned about. The girl has been running wild for months (for years) and with her apparent age, should any incidents occur it would be easy to blame the chaos of the war and improper education.

Lord help them, Lucy had better not be hiding a knife.

The train station is a blur. Susan pretends not to hear the wolf whistles and the catcalls. Lucy had asked on the ride over how they were going to identify Mother. Susan barely restrained herself from falling into hysterical giggles.

( _You are so much like your mother._ )

Peter said something along the lines of _look for Susan, just older._

…***…

Susan cannot stop staring at her father. Years ago, when they had been running from the witch, she had screamed at this man's ghost hiding in the corner of Peter's face, and now that she was confronted with the flesh and blood being, Susan found herself thinking that this was not Peter at all.

(She does not know if this is a compliment or not. To be frank, she does not care.)

Her father places a cup of tea on the table. _A dash of milk and two sugars._ He says as he sits. _Just the way you like it._

Susan does not have the rage beating a tattoo in her chest, not today. Instead, she has exhaustion clawing at her mind and her patience is hanging on by fraying threads.

She has not drunk tea with sugar in almost fifteen years. Sugar was a taxable import, the trade routes had been rough the first few years and the luxury of having sugar at her disposal did not occur until years after Susan had fallen out of habit of taking sugar in her tea. Even when sugar had become a staple, Susan had rarely touched it.

(Susan had been born into an economic depression and became an adult in a war-torn country. Luxury was something from fairy stories and necessity was based on what could be stretched thinner and what was needed to make do. Sugar was not on that list.)

Susan takes a sip, her nose instantly screwing up at the sweetness of the cup.

Her father raised an eyebrow. _Too much milk?_

Susan places the cup on the table. _Too much sugar, I think._

Her father swaps cups without a word, his tea still as black as coal. Susan does not blink at the bitter taste. Her father startles, but says nothing, instead drawing a long sip from Susan's cup. Instantly, he sputters.

Susan smiles as she takes another drink.

(Her mother takes her tea with three sugars and one milk.)

…***…

Mother is gone most days. Father may have returned, but there are many women sitting at home with letters of condolences instead of husbands. Mother and the Social from church have taken it upon themselves to invade some of these homes and turn out the dust, gather up the laundry, and ensure there is food on tables. It is a rare day Susan is not roped into joining. It is even rarer that everyone is at home together.

(Privately, Susan doesn’t even think she was this busy in the aftermath of the Final Battle.)

Susan is tired enough that she goes through the motions of making tea by route. _Do you know what it is like, to leave one world behind and fall into another?_ She asks the empty room, her mind spinning as she clutches the counter and tries not to topple over. _Do you know what it is like to come back?_

Susan is tired. The rage has all but burned away, leaving ashes in its wake and a deep-seated despair is dragging down her bones.

(Sometimes she feels like Alice. Sometimes she wonders if she wandered through a looking glass or stumbled down a rabbit hole. Animals spoke. War generals were lions. A faun was arrested for harboring a human. A witch was shouting off with their heads.)

(Would Mr. Tumnus know why a raven was like a writing desk?)

There is a small creak in the floorboards behind her and Susan does not look back. _Lily, if you cannot successfully sneak up on me, there is no chance I would approve your transfer to work for Ed._

Lily was the youngest of the slaves Edmund had rescued and given to Susan. She was the little girl Susan had carried out into daylight and was the little girl who had tottered after Susan as if the Queen had hung the stars and told the sun to shine. She was also a vicious little thing and had a spark that Susan was all too happy to fan into flames.

(Susan was not gentle. She did not sit the girl down and forbid her from learning weaponry and statecraft. Instead, Susan sat the girl down and taught her embroidery and espionage. Taught her medicine and poisons. Susan gave the girl everything Susan had been taught and then took everything one step further.)

(Susan was not gentle, but she was very pragmatic.)

Lily was a girl that with the proper encouragement and the right tools, would be a wonderful master of secrets should Edmund wish to branch out again. But she was also so young. Older than Lucy when Narnia had called them, but too young for Susan to turn out into the world in good conscious.

 _Show me you can survive, and I’ll sign a…_ Susan turns around with a cup of milk extended in offer and sees not a contrite Lily, but a bedraggled father. _Oh…_

Her father takes a seat. _Yes._

Susan jumps a bit, the milk sloshing onto the table. Susan bites back a curse and mops up the mess with a convenient tea towel.

Her father leans forward. _I do know what it is like to walk away from one world and jump head long into another. The question is, how do you?_

Susan freezes, the towel halfway through the puddle of milk and her brain screaming _shutupshutupshutup!_

_One minute you are walking away from your little girl, the next you’re hunkered down in a foxhole and hoping to God no one trips over you. Then a minute turns into an hour, an hour turns into a day, and the world is spinning too fast for you to keep up and all you can do is hold onto what’s in your hand, hope like hell your buddy has what they need, and you keep on going._

(There is a faun jumping over a rock beside her. Susan does not know his name. She knows that when they had been organizing the archery line, he had fallen in the second row and that his arrows were fletched with two white and one black feather. Now, He has a dagger in both hands and a snarl on his face. Susan doesn’t even have time to yell out a warning. Either way, it wouldn’t have saved him. He is caught in a backswing of a minotaur. The action was a pure fluke, the beast's battle-axe had become stuck in the ribcage of another creature Susan cannot identify, and the beast was forced to extend additional strength to free his axe. This caused him to unbalance and swing backwards. The faun times his jump too early and he dies bleeding out at Susan's feet. The minotaur dies seconds faster due to Susan's arrow slamming home in his eye.)

Susan starts to shake, and she drops into a chair with a thump. Her father reached over and holds onto her wrist, his thumb a gentle weight on her pulse.

_You are not very much like your mother. No, I think you are very much like me._

Susan looks up. (There is blood on her hands and dirt in her hair. What would mother think?)

Her father is not smiling.

 _You do what you have to._ He says solemnly, something like penance and apologetic guilt settling onto his shoulders so quickly Susan almost flinches back. _You do what you have to, to make things work._

(There are children running about in the courtyard. Baby fauns, dryads, nixes, humans, centaurs, all playing together without regard for specie or languages. They are children, it is summer, and they are safe. It is enough. Up on the battlements, Susan stands guard.)

(It is not a bad thing, Susan thinks, to do what must be done. It is not a bad thing at all.)

(There is blood under Susan's nails but there are children laughing in the courtyard.)

 _I went into a war so that my children wouldn’t have to._ Her father whispers, his other hand coming up to fold over her fingers. _But you went and found one anyway, didn’t you?_

(There are bodies everywhere. Edmund is dying. Susan can do nothing but pet his hair and hum lullabies as his breathing _hitches._ Edmund is dying. Edmund is dying. Edmund is dying.)

_Susan, my baby doll, being soft does not mean being weak._

And Susan positively _breaks._ Her shoulders hunch and her father scoops her up into his arms and holds her tight. She is crying, she does not know what to do, and her hands curl into tight fists in her father’s shirt. Her father is murmuring something into her hair and Susan just cries harder.

She misses them. She misses her girls, her trainees, her court. She misses Narnia. She misses her home.

Her father puts his chin on her head. _It is okay to grieve._

Susan hides her head in his chest.

(She can never go home.)

(But she can make a new one.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next, Peter and answers about their father!  
> -It has been pointed out to me that I have written this chapter to have an LGBTQ+ reading, and honestly, sure. if that works. Personally, I always thought of Susan as the doting aunt and mother, and if you have read any of my other works then you know I tend to write ace characters so i was a little shook when one of my mates pointed to the chapter and went 'you wrote Susan with a group of hunters 'dancing' in the woods' and here i thought i was writing 'Susan and her Artemis styled gang, hunting politics and slavers.' So I mean, read into what you will.  
> -Lost  
> \--please don't shoot me, my boss would be mad if I couldn't keep working


	4. Peter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everybody!  
> I have a new chapter! YAY! This is also the final chapter. I'm sorry guys. This fic is complete and done. I have to admit, Peter's chapter was the hardest to write, I really wasn't sure what direction this was going in and then it took off. So, for those of you who have been waiting for this update, here it is.  
> For those of you who are anxiously awaiting my other works, the Hobbit will be updated this month (september 2020), its just been difficult to write when I've been putting in long days at school. I haven't forgotten any of my other works but the updates will be slow going.  
> Also, thank you all for the lovely comments! They really helped me see what you guys wanted in the story and how to move forward.  
> Thank you!  
> As always, have fun, enjoy, and please don't shoot me!  
> -Lost  
> Edit: Check the end notes if you didn't figure out what Mr. Pevenise is

Aslan is cruel, Peter thinks on days where the clouds hang low and grey and the world seems just a touch too dark. Aslan is cruel and it is Peter who must pay the price. This is not a thought he can say out loud. It is not a concern he can discuss with his siblings. But Aslan is cruel, and Peter knows it all too well.

What sort of king leaves his people to rot and struggle under a foreign queen? What sort of king leaves his people and lands broken and cut off from the world, only to return when four children stumble into a political plot a century in the making? What sort of king crowns four children in a land with no salvageable governing system, no trade agreements, no diplomacy, or any form of communication with the foreign nations?

What sort of king crowns four children and then leaves them while stating he has duties elsewhere but does not explain anyway in which he can be called upon should trouble arise?

What sort of king makes a child lead a war?

On the days where the questions pile up and the anger leaves him breathless, Peter asks the question he can never dare utter aloud.

Why me?

Why us?

Why?

But years later and countless wars and battles after the first, Peter is no closer to having an answer then he was the first time he dared to wonder.

…***…

Between one step and the next, Peter trips, his hands flailing in front of him as springy pine branches give way to soft fur pelts. (There is no way Peter could have stumbled into a tannery, not while in the middle of a hunt. Mr. Tumnus had been giddy about the White Stag being near his old home and surely he would have mentioned a tannery established behind the Lamppost? Surely he would have said something? Lord, if Peter had broken into a shop again…Rohan had barely let him live it down the last time.) But, Peter trips. Surefooted Peter, trips. The weight of his sword is no longer at his hip and the pelts give too easily under his hands. He stumbles, overreaching and every bit of his soul is screaming _to go back._

_Turn back._

_Leave this place._

But, Lucy is snarling something about the scent of must and stale air, even as Susan shouts at Edmund for stepping on her foot. The panic of his siblings is loud and overwhelming, the echoes bouncing back too suddenly and too distorted for Peter to even grasp at any thoughts forming in his whirling mind.

The world is suddenly both too loud and too quiet. Too bright and too dark. Too much and not nearly enough.

Peter falls back through a break in the pelts to the ground, his hands skidding on the floor from the impact. His breath is knocked out of his lungs from Lucy landing straight on his spine. Lucy is silent, Edmund seems to be sprawled out beside Peter, and Susan is probably the only one to have kept her feet. Peter hardly spares his siblings a glance aside from acknowledging they were in fact _here_ and _alive_ before Peter is back on his feet.

The ground is too close. His clothes are too loose. The click in his left elbow from when it was dislocated during an honor duel against some idiotic would-be suitor of Lucy is gone. Peter breathes in too stale air, hears a too loud screech of an unoiled door hinge, and thinks that everything is hauntingly familiar. Everything is familiar but hazy and grey, and there is an old man walking through the door and Peter realizes too much and not enough in the span of a heartbeat.

A cricket ball.

A wardrobe.

A spare room.

Fifteen years ago, and only minutes before.

Lucy, sweet, feral, wild Lucy, bounces forward aiming for the old man's throat, and Peter only manages to grab her because she lunges too early and Peter had always had the quickest reflexes of the bunch. Over balanced, they both go tumbling to the floor, and in her confusion, Lucy is a screaming wild figure, all teeth and claws.

In all likelihood, it is only Peter's scent that keeps him from being mauled to death, but he does not flinch at the scratches his sister puts into his skin. Lucy is screaming and snarling, eyes wild and terrified. Susan is holding Edmund back by his collar, half stepping before him. And Peter, Peter takes his eyes off his sister only long enough to glance back to the wardrobe and see that no pine trees or fauna have followed them into this horror of a reality.

Peter, who is not as smart as his sisters or conniving like his brother, curls himself down into the nape of Lucy's neck and for a moment, let’s himself shudder at the realization of what he has just lost. Tucked into his shoulder and pinned to the floor, Lucy seems to realize there is no attack. There is no enemy. There is nothing but an empty room and an empty wardrobe.

 _I take it._ The old man says carefully as he passes the cricket ball from hand to hand. _That you found something entertaining in that wardrobe?_

And Peter, in the dusty corners of his childhood memories, can vaguely recall the same Old Man asking about ‘the wood in the wardrobe' and he almost leans back enough to let Lucy go as the implication of those words finally sinks in.

The Old Man does not appear to notice. _Tell me, how are Frank and Helen?_

Peter takes all of two seconds to piece together that King Frank and Queen Helen, _the first monarchy of Narnia and Archeland,_ are known to the old man. And the old man, therefore, knew of Narnia at least in abstract terms, and _he didn’t warn them._ And Peter, High King Peter, loosens his hold on Lucy just enough for the woman to twist out of his grasp and pin the old man against the wall of the spare room.

For all that Lucy is a child again and barely reaches the old man's elbow, the woman has incredible strength and Peter has it on good authority that an enraged Lucy, is an unnerving Lucy. It is probably even more potent considering Lucy appears to be an actual child. She has milk teeth snapping at the old man's throat and blunt claws curling into his fragile skin and Peter cannot summon an ounce of remorse.

Peter sinks back onto the ground. His wrists are draped over his knees, blood drips slowly down his arms and chest from Lucy's panic, and Peter has the oddest urge to laugh.

High King Peter the Magnificent.

High King Peter, left sitting on the floor of a spare room with blood sneaking down his arms and a world where he was far too young and far too old.

He wasn’t too magnificent now, was he?

…***…

The first night they are back, Peter sits in the window frame and watches as Lucy, Susan, and Edmund collapse into sleep in Peter and Edmund's room. Lucy, who's body is too young and too fragile to keep up with her energy and spirit, her body failing her as the sun sinks below the horizon. Edmund, who is hardly old enough to begin to deal with a cracking voice but is still cursed with a scar of ice and stone. And Susan, who seems to have lost her surefooted elegance all at once.

Peter keeps watch, one eye trained on the estate courtyard, the other sweeping over the forms of his siblings. He cannot sleep, does not know if he wants to, even if he could. Peter knows himself well enough to know his dreams would not be restful. Part of him wants to be angry. He should be angry. He is High King, he is meant to guide and guard Narnia. To uphold the crown and maintain the boundaries. He is High King, the head of the army, and the first defender of the kingdom.

Peter is (was) High King.

He should be angry.

With four siblings sharing the crown, each maintaining portions of the kingdom and trading responsibilities like chore lists, there had never been a need for a steward. There had never been a need to name an heir. All of Narnia knew Lucy and Edmund would continue to hold the crown long after Peter and Susan had stepped down. All of Narnia knew there were enough children of Adam for the kings and queens to take on a consort and produce an heir. Besides, they were yet young and there had been peace in the land.

There had been peace.

But they weren't in Narnia now.

The sun sinks below the horizon and Peter wonders who sits on the throne. There had never not been one of the Pevensies at the castle during their reign. The Beavers had passed a few years before, they had already been old when Peter had stumbled into them in the woods and in the end, it had almost been kinder to hear they had passed peacefully in the night. Rohan, while a general of the Narnian forces, had never wanted the throne and the few times Peter had teased him about it, the centaur had threatened to kick Peter through a window.

Lord above, Mr. Tumnus had better not have taken the throne. The old faun had never completely recovered from the Witch's dungeon and that wasn’t to mention the guilt he would be feeling once he realized his kings and queens were gone from Narnia. It was he, after all, who had brought word of the White Stag, and while Peter didn’t blame the faun, but he knew Mr. Tumnus would blame himself.

Peter should have named an heir.

On the bed, Lucy mumbles and twists, her face screwing up in what looks to be pain and Peter doesn’t even think before he is by her side, one hand soothing through her hair as he shushes her. At least they are together. At least Aslan (because who else but Aslan could have sent them back?) sent them home together.

Peter should be angry.

Peter should be angry.

(Mostly, he is tired).

(He really should have named an heir.)

…***…

Aslan is cruel, Peter realizes in the still silence of the spare room. He has a candle flickering low in one hand and his eyes are trained on the soft glow of candlelight reflecting off a familiar gold ring. Aslan is cruel and no one will ever know.

Peter places the candle on the floor, draws his knees up under his chin and stares at the ring. It is a simple piece of jewelry, a gold band inlaid with tiny diamond chips. The dwarf who had made it had shaken his head at the design, muttering that such an understated ring was not fit for royalty.

When compared to the sheer opulence of Cair Paraval, the ring did seem out of place. Yet, Peter had never been taken with the lavish jewelry and overwhelming displays of wealth. So, Peter had sketched from faded memories his grandmother’s wedding band. At the time, Peter had thought that if he wasn’t going to inherit the ring to give to his bride, then he might as well make one.

Peter had come from almost nothing, cast out of his home in a war to be gifted to strangers. It had been sheer luck he had been able to stay with his siblings and pure chance that they hadn’t been sent to a work home. Peter knew what it was like to have nothing and be forced to fight for something. His Grandfather had saved and squandered every penny he owned to gift his bride a few tiny flakes of diamond and Peter wanted to give his bride something of his family.

Peter could never ask Susan to be married off for a political match. She had her girls and her nieces. She was content. (Besides, if he had asked this of her, Peter was sure she would put and arrow through his head and take his crown with little complaint from their people.) In the same vein, Peter could never ask Edmund to marry for politics. Not after Vivianna.

And Lucy, well…

Lucy was a political nightmare when dealing with the children of Adam and Peter was not willing to risk a revolt from the creatures of Narnia if their queen was forced into anything less than a love match.

There was also the fact Peter had always hated moving his siblings about like chess pieces. As High King, Peter was bound to Narnia. Marrying outside of the Narnia border would solidify political ties and various treaties with neighboring kingdoms. By offering the hand of the High King, the likelihood of any backstabbing or unsavory matches went down the drain.

Politically, it made sense.

Personally?

Peter had grown up. He was older then when he had last seen his father, and to be honest, he wanted a family. He wanted something for himself and Peter wanted to start a family.

Susan was Narnia's diplomat. With an iron hand and a gentle smile, she brought about change both in the kingdom and with their closest neighbors. Edmund was Peter's left hand, his master of whispers. Standing half in the shadows and half in the light, Edmund was able to smooth the way for Susan and often dealt with problems before they appeared across Peter's desk. And Lucy? Lucy was the queen of creatures. Lucy held court with lions and tigers, climbed mountains with fauns, and stargazed with centaurs. To Lucy, there was no distinction between species. There was no distinction between stations.

Lucy was the best of the four.

But Peter? Peter was simply Peter. He corralled his siblings as best he could and stepped in front as often as fate would allow. Peter was the eldest and he held that title dearer than his deed name. Yet, Peter was still high King, and he still had a duty. He would marry and he would marry to keep his family safe.

For his family, he would do anything.

And then he met Zinnia.

Zinnia was one of Susan's ladies and Peter had known her for years before he had truly met her.

The first time he registers her as interesting is when Peter is ranting to Susan about his latest page, the son of a Duke in Archland, having refused to run messages to Lucy holding court in the forest. Zinnia, apparently fed up with the King being whinny and interrupting Susan's practice time at the range, had stepped up, snagged the letter Peter had been waving about, and bolted off towards Lucy's favorite clearing.

Stunned, Peter doesn’t even have time to blink before Susan is hitting his shoulder and telling him he doesn’t have a chance

The second time he registers the woman, she has an arrow pointed in his face and Susan is down with an arrow in her shoulder after a diplomatic relation had gone sideways rather quickly. Zinnia promptly releases the arrow and Peter has just enough time to realize the arrow is not so much aimed at him as it is at something _behind_ him, before a body is hitting the ground. Zinnia doesn’t even apologize, instead, she spins in place, tugs Susan to her feet and beckons for Peter to follow as she begins to limp towards where the Narnian forces are gathered.

It is around this time that Peter begins to think he might have met his match. This is also the moment Peter realizes he could never fancy a woman who didn’t love his siblings half as much as he did.

After the incident with the arrow, Peter seems to run into Zinnia every other day. Half the time, Zinnia is more concerned about correcting the motions of the archery unit, the other half she simply stares at Peter with a lifted eyebrow and a bored expression.

Susan does not seem to notice.

Then, near two seasons later, Edmund is gone dealing with a ‘concerning rumour', Susan has resumed her tour of diplomacy and kindness, and Lucy has been called to deal with a territory dispute between two different clans of dwarrow and one mine entrance. Peter does not envy any of his siblings but at the same time, he is left at Cair Paraval, the spring wheat is being harvested, Archland is demanding a re-negotiation to the treaty ,and for some God forsaken reason, there have been reports of activity at the Witch's ruins.

Peter is absolutely swamped with paperwork, he hasn’t slept in days, the words on the paper haven’t made sense in hours, and he is pretty certain someone has drugged his tea.

 _My lord, you need to sleep._ Zinnia snaps as she yanks the paper out of Peter's hands.

Peter stares at her blurrily, his head fuzzy and feeling as if he was watching everything three feet from his body. _I need to finish this._ Peter croaks back.

Zinnia looks down at the paper, unimpressed. _If this is what you have been working on, cooped up in here, you need a life._

 _I need a wife_. Peter mumbles back, his head hitting the desk as he realizes Zinnia is holding his doodle page. _Or at least someone who cares enough to stick around when the paperwork piles up._

(Peter loves his siblings, he does. But they all seem deathly allergic to the stacks of paper that make this country run.)

Zinnia blinks once or twice. _I can do that._

 _Are you proposing?_ Peter groans into his desk, mind still groggy and not nearly alert enough to realize what he is asking.

 _Are you accepting?_ Zinnia shoots back.

Absently, Peter reaches into his desk and pulls out the ring. Holding it up, Peter shifts his head enough to look at Zinnia. _I’ve got a ring?_

Zinnia chuckles, her head shaking as she leans forward and pushes Peter's hand down. _I’m flattered, but I’d rather not be queen._

 _You wouldn’t be!_ Peter protests, the part of his mind that is able to focus on the situation screaming that his last chance of help is about to leave. _Narnia already has two queens. You'd just be consort._

 _And paperwork princess._ Zinnia drawls.

Peter nods his head frantically. _If you want!_

 _I’ll ask for a transfer._ Zinnia says primly.

Somehow, between questions and the world spinning under his feet, Zinnia has managed to push and prod Peter towards the settee in the corner. Peter doesn’t fight. He’s asleep before his head even hits the arm rest.

Several hours later, he wakes up to find a ring clutched in his hand and his desk completely void of any paperwork. Zinnia is no-where to be seen, but when Peter hauls himself to his feet, he spies a note front and center on his desk.

‘Dinner first, then maybe a courtship.’

The memories from the night before flood in and Peter begins to sport a flush that goes all the way under his shirt collar. Dear lord, Susan is never going to let him live this down.

Yet, no angry letter from Susan ever arrives in the coming days. Zinnia routinely appears at his desk just before dinner and miraculously organizes his papers, outlines what is urgent and takes away everything that can be delegated. They do not speak of the proposal or the ring.

Two weeks into this arrangement, Zinnia hands him a letter, notifying him that she has been allowed leave to enter Peter's household while maintaining her position as archer under Susan's command. Peter makes no comment as Zinnia directs a desk into the corner of his office and she settles into the chair offered to her with minimal fussing.

The next few weeks follow the same trend. Zinnia and Peter settle in Peter's office every evening and tackle the ongoing pile of paperwork. When the four siblings are finally together in the castle again, Zinnia begins to appear every other day, her unit once again active under Susan's command.

Peter, finally able to delegate and slip away to focus on his own duties, finds himself occasionally turning to make a comment to Zinnia, only to find no one is there. It is confusing. Peter does not know if he loves the woman. Certainly it is true that he respects her and he does miss her when she is not with him, but love? Love is a whole other concern Peter does not know how to tackle.

Peter had every intention to marry for politics and for the good of Narnia. Love has never been a factor. Oh, he knew that he would have to respect the woman he was to marry, but he always assumed love would come later. He had been content with the thought of a marriage founded on respect.

Could Peter love Zinnia?

Marrying the woman certainly made sense. She was of the first group of Narnians to return home. She was a well respected woman in the archery corps, and she had saved Susan's life. Marrying Zinnia also had the benefit of strengthening ties in Narnia, showing the people that the royal family could marry in their borders without worrying about offending neighbouring kingdoms.

But, there was still the question; could Peter love Zinnia?

Unfortunately, Peter would never know now. Reports of the white stag had reached the castle and Peter had foolishly agreed that the four siblings needed something to do together. A hunt seemed like the most reasonable thing to do. Then, of course, they fell back through the wardrobe, and the dilemma of a possible marriage contract became nullified and void.

Staring at the ring on the floor, the same one Peter had held up while suffering from acute paperwork and sleep deprivation, Peter had to wonder if it was all worth it. To be honest, he wasn’t sure what he was mourning. Zinnia, or the chance to settle down.

Does he miss the woman or the dream?

His hand reaches forward to clasp the ring even as the candle sputters into darkness. Peter doesn’t even look over to the swish of skirts in his preferal vision. _Hey, Zinnia?_ He calls out, his hand tightening on the ring, _Why'd you douse the light?_

(Well, that answers that question, doesn’t it?)

…***…

 _How are Helen and Frank?_ Professor Kirke asks when he finally manages to drag Peter into his study. _I had always wondered how they faired._

Peter stares off into the courtyard through the window and wonders how everything could have gone so wrong so quickly. Part of him wants to slam his hands down onto the man's desk and scream that Queen Helen and King Frank have been dead for centuries, their line extinguished by the White Witch and forgotten in flooded catacombs. The other part wants to stand up and simply, walk away.

How far could he get, Peter wonders. How far could he walk before he could walk no more? Would he hit the ocean first? Or a river? Would he disappear into a wood, never to be seen again?

(Would anyone even notice he was gone?)

Yet, Peter does neither of these things and instead leans against a bookshelf and sighs. _King Frank and Queen Helen had a son, Frank the Second._

Professor Kirke hums quietly for a moment, his gaze somehow both assessing and dismissive. _What is their son like?_

For a moment, Peter doesn’t know what to say. He doubts the others have said anything about Narnia, aside from mentioning the name of their kingdom and raising their voices in a shout against Aslan. Which leaves Peter to explain about the situation, to explain that everyone Kirke knew is long dead and previously long forgotten. It leaves Peter to be the one to give Kirke the truth.

(But what is truth?)

(What can Peter even say?)

 _Did you know,_ Peter begins after a few minutes of heavy silence, _that Aslan crowned us Kings and Queens of Narnia? Did you know that we ruled for at least fifteen years and during a handful of wars?_

( _Did you know I almost married?)_

Professor Kirke all but chokes, his eyes bulging out of his head as he stares Peter down. _Surely you jest!_

There is a general air of disbelief and for all that Kirke had preached for Peter and Susan to start believing their sister and learn to shift through lies and truth, Peter does not think Kirke can suspend his disbelief enough to understand that Peter is not joking. And Peter, who is well into his thirties and has long since learned when to pick his battles, gives the man a court smile and shakes his head.

Later, when Peter is dismissed from the study, he quietly slides a copy of _The History of the World and Her Peoples_ under his sweater. Surely, if Peter is having difficulty keeping track of the history of this world, then Edmund, who has always thrived on knowledge and knowing more, is desperate.

(The book is placed at Edmund's bedside table. Neither of the boys comment about the book but Peter thinks Edmund is pleased.)

…***…

The world moves on. Their mother writes a letter telling them they will be coming home soon and that she has gotten word their father will be arriving soon as well.

(Peter looks at the forms of his sleeping siblings and wonders what it is like to have a mother and a father. He is in his thirties, a ring weighs down his pocket, and he is expected to go to school in the fall. He can lead armies, sign treaties, and talk politics with diplomats. He is a king.)

(He does not know how to be a son.)

…***…

Peter does not go to the wardrobe at night and scream until his throat bleeds. He is not like Lucy, a wild feral thing that is willing to scratch at wood and scream at a lion until blood drops down her arms.

Peter does not go to the wardrobe to scream.

Instead, Peter sits. He does not bring a candle and he does not bring loud, violent accusations. Peter brings silence and a ring. He sits in the middle of a spare room, stares at a wardrobe, and wonders what, exactly, he is supposed to be feeling.

Anger? Rage? Betrayal?

( _Hail King Peter the Magnificent! Long may he reign!)_

Peter is a king without a kingdom.

( _Once a king and queen of Narnia, always a king and queen of Narnia.)_

Peter is a king without a crown.

( _You will take care of your siblings, won’t you?_ )

Peter is a king.

( _Zinnia, your highness. My name is Zinnia, Captain of the fifth archery unit.)_

Peter is lost.

…***…

Peter does not remember the ride home. For all that the train seemed to drag on and on, he does not remember getting off at the station or somehow managing to make it back home.

His father is alive.

His father.

Alive.

Lucy is curled protectively at their father’s throat and Peter cannot stop looking at the man. He is alive. Rationally, Peter knew this. Their mother had written to tell of his survival. But it is one thing to read and quiet another to see the man in the flesh.

Alive.

Peter is in shock, isn’t he?

_I hear you four had a bit of an adventure._

Peter jolts as if bitten by Philip's foal, reality sinking through the hazy edges of his mind like claws. Oh lord, does their father know of Narnia? Does he know?

Does he know Peter is (was) king? Does he know Peter lead wars and killed men? Does he know Peter’s hands are redredredredredredredred?

(Does he know Peter got a sick sort of satisfaction whenever his strategic maneuvering paid off on the battlefield? Does he know Peter has killed?)

 _To hear tell of it, we certainly did._ Peter replies on reflex, smiling his court smile. Peter doesn’t know which adventure his father is referring towards (he can’t know of Narnia. He can’t) and he doesn’t have time to figure it out, not right now. The statement should be enough for his father to continue the conversation and provide Peter the context he so desperately needs.

His father gives him a side-eyed look over Lucy's head.

(This man, this stranger, is holding Lucy! He has Peter's sister wrapped in his arms and too far away for Peter to grab her back. He has access to every part of Lucy. Every vulnerable vein, bone, and nerve. He has Lucy and Peter has no choice but to play along.)

The journey back to their house (house, because this is not home. Home is a world away and inaccessible. Home is four crowns, a kingdom, and not this place) is somehow short and far too long. Lucy is being held by their father, Susan and Edmund are tucked under Mother's arms, and Peter can do nothing but watch as his family walks into a house Peter left behind a lifetime ago.

Peter watches as his family marches into the house and never once turn around to look back. Well, that isn’t quiet true, Lucy, curled up into Father's neck, lifts her head enough to meet Peter's gaze. She doesn’t have to say a word; Peter knows her too well. If Peter does not find his way into the house in the next hour, Lucy would come tearing out on a warpath.

But Peter… he can’t. He can’t. He can’t look at that house and think of peace. He can’t look at that house and think of safety. He can’t look at that house and acknowledge the fact his family is inside.

Peter is a king.

Peter is nothing but a boy.

Peter is a child and between one breath and the next, he is sitting on the front stoop and holding his head in his hands. He should be feeling pain from how tightly his fingers are digging into his scalp. He should be wincing from the wounds his nails are carving into his skin. He should be feeling _something._

Peter sits on the front stoop, stares at the cracked concrete, and thinks to himself that Aslan is cruel.

Peter is a king.

(He is nothing but a child.)

( _Hail King Peter! Hail King Peter the Magnificent!)_

…***…

Peter falls into a terrible habit. He cannot stop moving. If he stops, he thinks, if he thinks, he gets angry. If he gets angry then the rage piles up under his skin and _burns._ Sleeping doesn’t help, not when he wants the dream to be reality and the reality to be a dream.

So Peter falls into terrible habits. He cannot look at his siblings, not without thinking they are too young and too _old,_ too innocent and too _broken._ (And it is his fault. His fault. He should have told them all to leave Narnia. He should have insisted they stay away from the war. He should have never let any of them get involved.) Peter cannot look at his siblings. So, he leaves.

Peter is not stupid, no matter what his brother says. Peter knows himself, knows people, understands that with the war ending, there are more people back in the country and that means less jobs to go around. The economy will take time to stabilize, and if they were lucky, the population boom about to occur would be blessed with a long and stable upturn in trade and business. (Peter wasn’t holding his breath. Narnia had been engaged in three wars during his reign. Their economy had never fully stabilized and being entirely self sufficient had been their only saving grace for almost a decade.)

But, it is easier to pay children subpar wages then it is to cater to the demands of discharged soldiers, so Peter makes a meager living to provide to his mother and he does not complain.

(He tries not think of the ring shoved under his mattress. Pretends that there is no reason to pawn it away for funds desperately needed to keep four growing children feed, clothed, and educated.)

(He pretends that he does not turn to ask for _her_ opinion.)

Getting a job at the grocery as a bagger is a stroke of luck. The fact that Mr. and Mrs. Brown, the owners, lost a young blond son in the war is, while devastating, also a stroke of pure luck on Peter's part. Mrs. Brown, ever so quick to pinch Peter's cheek and press food into his hands, is a godsend.

Still, Peter falls into terrible habits. He is up before his siblings and gone even before their father rolls out of bed. Peter is gone all day, bouncing between shifts at the grocery and wherever the Browns indicate a neighbour would need help for an hour or two. He does not come home until long after the sun drops below the horizon.

Then, feeling like it is a terrible sin, Peter does his rounds. He locks the door behind him, and begins to walk clockwise along the first floor, closing windows and flipping locks. As he gets upstairs, he checks first on Susan, then Edmund. Mother and father can both be seen through their propped open door, then Peter goes to find Lucy.

Lucy has adjusted _oddly._ Arguably, the creatures were the most civilized of all the species in Narnia and they never seemed to have the petty arguments of Men. Yet, even with Lucy as their queen, Peter learned very quickly that while it was sons and daughters of Adam that may rule, the creatures allowed it only due to orders of _their_ king.

Privately, Peter thought Lucy had been accepted because of her youth. With a queen so young, the creatures were able to raise her to be something _other_. Something that wasn’t _human._ Lucy, with her fascination and innocence, fell in with the creatures quickly. And Peter, to his shame, owed the creatures a debt. They raised Lucy. They took a daughter of Adam, Peter’s little sister, and taught her to defend herself and to be _fair._ They took a lost little girl and they gave back a queen.

As much as Peter thinks Aslan is cruel for sending them back, the lion’s worst sin is that he sent back Lucy. Lucy, who can no more be detained then a summer storm. Lucy, who grew up to have teeth and claws that could break even a giant. Lucy, who is now nothing more then a pup lashing out with blind eyes and milk teeth, straining at her collar and howling at the injustices she sees.

(Lucy has always been fair, but no one ever bothered to clarify who she would be fair to.)

So, Peter checks on his siblings and then he goes to find Lucy. The girl had never spent much time in the castle, much preferring her own court accessible by all her people. Lucy had built her own den in the woods and Peter had never seen any reason to deny her the comfort Cair Paraval could not provide. Yet, now that they were in England, Lucy had no den, no nest to claim.

The house was small. Three bedrooms, the children separated by gender. Downstairs was little more then a sitting room that merged with a kitchen and dining area. The only place not frequently used in the house, was the crawlspace that doubled as an attic. Lucy, who was under scrutiny and the careful eye of their mother, had no way to disappear to build a den off property, which left one place in the house completely hers.

The attic.

Setting down his bag, Peter reaches up and gently pushes the trapdoor out of the way and hoists himself up through the hole. The first time he had done his rounds and not seen Lucy tucked in bed across from Susan, he had panicked. The house was tiny, there was no where else she could be! He had bolted out into the hall and had only calmed down when he realized the line closet in the hall had a slight scuff mark on the door. Peter was tall enough to reach up and hoist himself into the attic. Lucy was not.

Up in the attic, Lucy had made a small nest. She wasn’t there often, too worried about being found by their parents, but on long nights, Peter knew she would be in her den, curled between squished pillows, discarded towels, and torn sheets.

(Peter pretended not to see the missing knives, the neighbour boy's slingshot, or the beginning of a small hatchet. Out of all of them, Lucy is the one with the least defences, if hoarding away mismatched weaponry is what will keep her from snapping her teeth and flashing claws, Peter withhold his judgement.)

(He also pretends he has nothing to do with the growing supplies in the corner of the attic. Peter has lived through countless battles and a handful of wars. There is no such thing as being over prepared.)

_Do you think we came back wrong?_

Peter is not even fully in the attic yet, but Lucy's tired voice washes over him like cold snow.

 _Why do you ask?_ Peter sighs, resolutely not looking at his _red red red red_ hands.

 _Dad. He looks at us weird._ Lucy hums, her eyes the only bit of her Peter can see clearly in the nest.

Peter settles on a crossbeam and fancies that he can see part of Lucy's shoulder in the darkness. He still can’t look at his siblings, not really, but he has never had that problem with Lucy. Lucy, who never did like to stay in one spot and who always seemed to be _more_ then the rest of them. Narnia might have destroyed Peter, might have torn Susan's easy grace, and jeopardized Edmund's morals, but Lucy seemed to march away from Narnia with a head full of secrets and blood full of anger.

 _I thought you got on well with the old man._ Peter comments gently. He does not think of Lucy nudging her nose into their father's throat. Pretends not to remember Lucy staring at their father with stars in her eyes and an easy peace across her shoulders.

Peter can hear Lucy shift. _He’s like me._ Lucy says eventually, when the silence drags on a bit too long. _He's…wild._

That’s certainly a polite way to out it. Their father. The professor. Before the war, the man was a doting figure. Always handing our little sweets and dragging Peter and Susan into discussions that he said would make them _think._ Peter, on principle, now hated philosophy. Ironically, Edmund could never get enough. But after the war…

Peter had been concerned their parents would notice something was wrong with them. Now, he wasn’t sure mother noticed anything aside from how her husband stared at dark corners a bit too long, used both hands to drink his tea, and hardly ever spoke. Father used to speak a mile a minute, now he hardly said anything at all.

Father was much more instinct driven, liable to growl and snarl when Peter accidentally snuck up on the man. As apposed to _before,_ their father was now much more physically affectionate. Willing to ruffle hair, drag his children into crushing hugs, and wrestle with the boys in the back yard. Their father had always been a studious man, born and raised in academia, now he seemed _different._

Staring into the dark, Peter had to wonder if Lucy was right. Yes, their father seemed lead by instinct, but in all honesty, Peter thought the man sounded more like…

Him.

Their father was like him after the war with the Witch.

And oh, didn’t that change things.

 _I think,_ Peter says into the darkness, his head thumping back against the roof, _we all forget that father went away to war too._

…***…

Peter comes back to the house late. The sun went down hours ago. He’s got a small wad of cash burning a hole in his pocket, and he hopes to God there are leftovers in the fridge. He is so used to slipping quietly into the house that it is a shock to realize there is someone sitting on the front stoop.

Peter slows to a stop a few feet away.

 _Your sister asked if I knew what it was like to fall into another world._ His father muses into the night. _I wonder what you would say if I asked that to you._

Peter just about chokes.

_Tell me Peter, do you know what it is like to go to war?_

And Peter, who has lead armies and buried troops. Who has set up ambushes and given leave for Edmund to walk in the shadows. Who has nodded to Lucy and let the very ground and trees walk out and massacre the enemy. Peter, who is not a kind boy, no more then he is a kind man, looks at his father and sees a child. His father did what was necessary and Peter is sure the man sees the same dripping red on his hands, but his father does not (cannot) understand.

He has not ordered the deaths of hundreds.

He has not stained a river red.

Peter looks at his father, reminds himself of the peace Lucy brought into her den, and sits on the stoop. He thinks of all the things he cannot say, thinks of the confessions he cannot give, and eventually says _I nearly got them killed._

It is not enough, not nearly enough.

 _But you didn’t._ His father muses, somehow managing to sound as if he is commenting on the weather.

Silence falls between them and Peter stares into the street and forces himself to breathe. His father acknowledging a truth does not absolve him of his mistakes. It should not make him feel better.

( _Hail King Peter!)_

 _You were sent away from the war. I think,_ his father says quietly, _you managed to find a war anyway._

( _We just want our brother back. We're not heroes. We just want our brother.)_

Peter thinks back to when the beavers lured them in with stories of heroes and prophecies. He thinks back to when Edmund slipped away into the night and the pieces were laid out like stepping stones for his family to die. Peter thinks back to the battle he spearheaded and with distance and age, wonders how the hell he had managed to survive a battle with only a month of training.

Peter thinks back to Aslan's demand for him to be magnificent and he snarls. _They had Edmund._

It is not a confession, but it might as well be.

His father does not look surprised. _And yet, Edmund is asleep upstairs. A little bit scarred and a little bit broken, but otherwise alive._

 _They had Edmund._ Peter repeats, frustrated that his father is willing to absolve him so quickly. The man had demanded Peter take of his siblings and what did Peter do? Let Edmund be kidnapped by a Witch!

 _And you got him back._ His father replies mildly. _You are human and you are allowed to make mistakes._

( _Hail King Peter the Magnificent!)_

And Peter, nothing more then a boy with the weight of the world on his shoulders and his hands stain red, reminds himself his father has gone to war too.

The reminder is not enough to ease the rage in his blood.

(What mistakes had Peter made, to be forced from Narnia? What mistakes had he made that he was removed from both of his homes? What mistakes had he made to ensure his siblings went through the very same hell he did?)

 _What mistakes have you made?_ Peter asks bitterly. He doesn’t know why his father unsettles him so badly. Peter is older then the man, has seen more and done more then his father could ever imagine. Yet, Peter lashes out, again and again. Peter is angry.

Peter is tired.

 _Enough._ His father admits. _I have made enough mistakes._

And Peter, a king and a boy, tilts his head back and stares up at the smog that covered the stars. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know how to explain that he is angry, that he holds a snarling raging thing behind his ribs and the only way to keep it quiet is to work until his fingers bleed and his eyes shut of their own accord.

 _You are not one of those mistakes._ His father does not look at him.

Peter thinks to the ring hidden in his mattress, to Lucy huddled in the attic, to Susan who wavers through the day like a wraith, to Edmund who holds his scar of ice and stone whenever their mother gives him a sweet. Peter thinks of Zinnia’s smile and sharp witted banter. Peter does not say ‘I didn’t want to come back’. He does not say ‘this is not my home’. He does not curse or scream, or lash out.

 _Aslan is cruel._ Peter says, his knuckles white and bloodless.

_I have found,_ his father says slowly, his head tilting to look up to the same stars, _that most people are._

And Peter, who holds rage in his heart, thinks to the names he and his family were given.

Fair.

Just.

Gentle.

Magnificent.

He thinks to the rage. He thinks to the names. He thinks of his people, and he thinks that it was cruel to take four children and make them kings of a broken country. But he also thinks to Zinnia. To the children of Adam who came home to safe havens and a second chance. He thinks of the spring and the summer. Of the happiness his people displayed when the winter’s spell broke.

(Aslan is cruel, but then no one had ever said he wasn’t.)

Peter remembers the beavers and the kindness they had always shown. He thinks to the fauns, the centaurs, the dwarrow. He thinks of the tutors who helped him find his feet. He thinks of the peace Narnia had finally achieved.

(Peter is angry. But he thinks maybe he has good reason to be.)

 _Not everyone._ Peter whispers firmly, his hand dropping to pull out the bundle of notes the Browns had given him for his by-weekly pay. _Not everyone is cruel._

…***…

_Once a King and Queen of Narnia, always a King and Queen of Narnia._

_All hail King Peter! All hail Queen Susan! All hail King Edmund! All hail Queen Lucy!_

_Long may they reign._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who held on until the end and really want to know, Mr. Penvensie can be one of two things. I always thought of him as someone like Lucy, who was just a little bit wild and a little bit odd, but ultimately, human. The second option, if you just shouted "LOST, THAT ISN'T RIGHT HE'S FAE" (looking at you Hazardofacat) is he is whatever creature you want. I know, I know, thats not fun, but seriously. The kids are not reliable narrators, the whole point of the mystery behind this man, was that these kids went away and came back and so did their father. They all changed and they all now need to come to terms with that.  
> So, you have two options.  
> You think their father is human.  
> or  
> You think their father is 'other'.  
> Either way, I hope you had a lot of fun with this story and trust me, both readings work well with this fic.  
> Have fun and please don't shoot me.  
> Please don't. I have a lot of homework to do.

**Author's Note:**

> considering I wrote this in the car on the ride home from my school, its not bad.  
> Also, I'll leave it up to you guys as to why Lucy's father is so much like her


End file.
